Leadership Change and Chinese Political Development

Abstract

This article has three goals. The first is to characterize the nature of the current Chinese political system, culminating at the 16th Party Congress, as a combination of economic, domestic political and foreign policy reform. Economically, it represents a continuation of marketization, privatization and globalization under more centrally controlled auspices. Politically, it represents a continuation of Dengist emphases on elite civility and administrative institutionalization. And in foreign policy, it brings China to the threshold of great power status, as the old ambivalence between overthrowing the international system and assuming an important role within it nears resolution. The second purpose, viewing “Jiangism” in comparative developmental terms, conceives political development in terms of both state-building and nation-building: the greatest emphasis has been on the former. The third goal is to subject Jiangism to immanent critique by pointing out the most conspicuous emergent contradictions. These seem to include gaps between rich and poor and between east and west, a largely unsuccessful attempt to reform the nation's industrial core and its attendant financial system, and a paradoxical inability to police the state even while increasing state capacity.

Leadership Succession in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan: Regime Survival after Nazarbayev and Karimov

“…8 The current Chinese Communist party is often cited as the ideal-type of this regime. 9 Parties establish rules which in turn create some level of predictability and protection for elites, who therefore have an incentive to follow them. Elite conflicts can be regulated within the organizational structure of the party and therefore the overall level of conflict is generally reduced.…”

Economic Freedom and Political Control in Post-Mao China: A Perspective of Upward Accountability and Asymmetric Decentralization

“…Regional economic fragmentation meant that domestic firms were only able to invest within their respective regions, and this strongly restricted the mobility of domestic private enterprises (Huang, 2003). 18 However, given the condition that political centralization allows leaders to be assigned by upper-level governments, local leaders may not actually be local and may instead be transferred cadres from either high levels of government with no or limited local experience, or non-local officials who worked in other localities prior to their new posts (Dittmer, 2003;Li, 2008). From this perspective, I pay particular attention to a new geographical phenomenon of personnel movement that achieved positive results when some leading cadres were moved to underdeveloped areas from more economically developed areas.…”

Legislation and Equality in Basic Education for All in China

“…Moreover, economic reform quickened the pace of industrialization and urbanization. However, since the 1990s, domestic economic policies promoting market forces and unbalanced development have led to intensified social conflicts and unrest, as well as a widening income gap between rich and poor and regional economic divides among the eastern, middle, and western parts of China (Dittmer, 2003;Lewis & Xue, 2003;Tang, 2001).…”